Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Links and Reflection

As I have been continuing my research into Second Life as a virtual learning environment I have begun to face a serious technical issue. That is, Second Life software does not fully support Windows Vista, thus the program keeps crashing. Since this blog is part of an assignment, and not really a soapbox, I will limit my comments about VISTA to one word: USELESS!

Enough said!

Since I can't explore Second Life as I would like, my post this week will focus on introducing a few useful links for educators in Second Life.

The site has links to a few lectures which discuss implications of Second Life education as well as the list of classes for BSU students. One lecture worth noting for instructional designers is the Webinar by Dr. Lisa Dawley, the designer of EDTECH island, who addresses the issues of needs analysis and course design in Second Life. She stated that traditional ID models such as ADDIE are too strict for virtual learning environments and technology enhanced learning. Since most of us are just beginning to learn about these models its nice to hear a different perspective.

To really understand virtual learning, we as educators need to experience it as learners. The virtual learning environment of SL can be intimidating, or like Tim said, “"The Sims" on steroids”, but I feel that we need to really explore and get a feel for it as soon as we can. More than that, as instructional designers we need to see how virtual learning is understood through the various filters of learning theories and eventually step back to develop and/or support new theories that can help drive our instructional design. We might not particularly be using SL for our future careers, but the implication for our careers in the instructional design field is tremendous.

2 comments:

kevin, i hear you, i have that same problem even on XP! i used to be fascinated with doing research on games & virtual worlds/simulations but the technical aspect put me off. i haven't gone in too much these days because of technical constraints. each time, a big virtual conference is organized, i get in & the sheer number of people inworld kicks me out, my pc hangs and i get nothing from the conference. one day, i want to try setting up a room in google lively to see how it works with avatars chatting in their own rooms in this google app. - yin

I am glad that I'm not the only one with these technical issues. From all the 2nd life literature out there, it seems that they haven't really sufficiently dealt with these issues. Instead it seems they are only championing the use of 2nd Life - making it seem like the next revolution in distance ED. As much as I love the idea, more fundamental issues need to be addressed.

Syracuse University - IDD&E

Working as an instructional designer for Bristol Community College for the Title III funded initiative - "The Connected College". As part of this project am currently running an study that examines the use of iPads by students and faculty.